cheap 802.11g card that has a real LINUX driver

D. Hugh Redelmeier hugh-pmF8o41NoarQT0dZR+AlfA at public.gmane.org
Mon May 2 14:00:13 UTC 2005


| From: Jamon Camisso <jamon.camisso-H217xnMUJC0sA/PxXw9srA at public.gmane.org>

| Is it safe to assume that because the card works on your system that the card
| model is not v2 or v3?

I think so.

My card has no version number mentioned on it.  I would guess that
makes it version 1.0.  It says "Made in Taiwan" rather than "Made in
China", which is a good sign.

Interestingly, there is a blank where the Serial number should be.
Perhaps due to bein refurb.

BTW, the the refurbing was done by or for Netgear since it came with a
3 month Netgear refurb warranty.  I mention this because the word
"refurbish" could mean anything including "Joe had a look at it".

| According to the wiki those revisions are not
| supported: (http://prism54.org/phpwiki?pagename=Supported%20Cards)

Too bad the Wiki does not explain how to look at a card and tell if it
will work.

| Is the wiki off or is the driver a little more robust -- or is the card indeed
| a v1?

My sources (i.e. other users in a support group for my particular
notebook) say similar things.  But they may all come from the Wiki.

| As a side note, with a little tweaking the dlink dwl-650+ can be configured
| with minimal problems for use. The only problem with that card is that it is
| only 802.11b.  The driver at http://acx100.sourceforge.net
| even has a download binary-firmware function built in.

I've used DWL650 (number from memory) without having to add drivers to
Red Hat something-or-other.  As I understand it, one trouble is that
one 802.11b member of an 802.11g wireless network drives all
participants to 11mbps (or less).  So sometimes you really want
everyone to be 802.11g.

| Thoughts?

It is really annoying that LINUX support for wireless cards has gotten
worse since the 802.11b days.  The fault is with the chip
manufacturers or (their excuse) the US Federal Communications
Commission.  The long arm of US regulation.

Insult to injury: my notebook came with a Broadcom 802.11g interface
in the form of a miniPCI card.  It is unsupported in LINUX -- specs
are proprietary.  If I try to swap with a supported miniPCI card, it
won't work because the notebook's BIOS has a whitelist of supported
cards.  Anything not on the whitelist causes the BIOS to balk.  The
excuse given, again, is regulatory approval.

I might bite the bullet and try ndiswrapper (actually ndiswrapper64)
because built-in 802.11g is better than PCcard.
- no delicate antenna sticking out
- built in antenna is probably larger (around screen, I think)
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